Donald C. Collins
e-mail collinsd1@sfusd.edu
website www.donaldcollins.org.
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Donald C. Collins e-mail collinsd1@sfusd.edu website www.donaldcollins.org.
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ABOUT THIS SITE
This site has information on legal and business issues affecting amateur sports, and issues affecting sports officials and officials' associations. This information is set out in over 40 articles written by Donald C. Collins. This site also has a comprehensive sportsmanship index.
Click on your area of interest on the menu bar on the left
For the latest information, see "What's New" on this page
WHAT'S NEW!
If you're an official and you're moving to a new state, you need a quick way to reach your new state's Officials' Association. Visit the Officials Page and click on "Links to National and State Officials' Organizations"
A Mighty Success Story - Top NFL Prospect Interviews For Rhodes Scholarship - And The Interview's On Game Day. See For Florida State Player and Scholar, Game Day Is Different by Pete Thamel, New York Times.
Click Here for USA Today's Special Report on Sports and Academics. Are our athletes "majoring in eligibility, with a minor in beating the system" as Univ. of Central Florida Associate Professor C. Keith Harrison contends? See Athletes Guided Toward 'Beating the System' by Jill Lieber Steeg, Jodi Upton, Patrick Bohn, and Steve Berkowitz, USA Today,
El Paso, TX - November 11, 2008 - Texas High School Cheerleaders Try To Win By Poisoning Opponents. See 3 Chapin Dancers Suspended In Tampering Of Snacks by Zahira Torres, El Paso Times.
100 Fans Rush Field in Wild Soccer Brawl in Framingham, MA. See Soccer Fight Being Investigated, MIAA Says by Norman Miller, MetroWest Daily News.
Click here for a very good editorial on sportsmanship
Fifteen Of 86 Football Players Test Postive For Drugs at North Texas, ESPN.com, 15 North Texas Football Players Fail Drug Test by Troy Phillips, Fort-Worth Star Telegram. For more on steroids, see the steroid page.
Nampa High School Football Player Arrested For Punching Coach, KTRV - Fox 12, Boise, Idaho.
For The Latest On Recruiting and The Importance of Club Sports see The Next Big Thing by Tommy Craggs, New York Times Play Magazine.
Controversial Fees: Metro Prep Athletes Pay To Play by Todd Holcomb, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.. In tough economic times, schools are passing a lot of costs on. This is but one example
Participation Fees: 2008 - Sports Participation Fees May Be Tempting For Schools - But The National Association of Secondary School Principals Comes Out Against Them. Click Here For Details.
Upswing in Rise of Coach/Player Inappropriate Relationships Is Clear. Do Coaches Need Psycho-Social Training? Chris Stankovich, an Ohio Psychologist says, "Let's Start Now." See Psychologist: Coaches Lack Ample Training by Jim Halley and Jeff Zillgit, USA Today. Also, see Counselor Lobbies For Coaches To Get More Training by Aaron Blankenship, Upper Arlington (Ohio) This Week (detailing Stankovich's on-going efforts). Is Stankovich correct? Well, in the last month or so we've seen an Idaho volunteer volleyball counselor accused of having sex with a student, a lacrosse coach convicted of assault for "goosing" one of his players, an AAU coach indicted on 13 counts of sex with an underage member of his girls' basketball team, and an Indiana PE teacher (granted she isn't a coach) enjoying a nude sauna while on a field trip with underage students.
USADA Launches My Victory Anti-Steroid Campaign - While State High School Testing Is Under Fire As Not Being Cost-Effective. See States' Testing Programs Finding Few Offenders by A.J. Perez, USA Today. Of course, the steroid industry has its own sites, too. Click here for an example and click here for more. The bad guys are winning this battle! They have to. The good guys have fear, morality, inspiration and deterrence, but the bad guys have the profit motive.
Are State-Wide Testing high school testing programs working? It's not clear. Here's some data from Texas and Florida:
Florida steroids tests
Athletes tested: About 600
Schools: 43
Positive tests: 1
Cost: $100,000 in state money (2007-08 school year)
Testing agency: National Center for Drug Free Sport
Texas steroids tests
Athletes tested: 10,000
Positive tests: 2
Cost: $3 million annually in state money
Testing agency: National Center for Drug Free Sport
The scope of this statewide testing is extremely limited, reaching only an incredibly small percentage of a state's athletes and skewing the statistical value of the data - although one could argue about the deterrent effect. The Collier County School Board in Florida conducted its own tests, allowing them to penetrate much deeper into their athlete pool and test a much greater percentage (they tested over 10% of their student-athletes) of their sample population of student-athletes. Here are its results:
Collier County School Board recreational drug tests
Athletes tested: About 600
Schools: All seven public high schools
Positive tests: 7
Cost: $200,000 in federal grant money (over three years, 2007-10)
Drug Testing - For the legal basis of it all see Vernonia v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995) (random suspicionless drug testing of athletes is constitutional on grounds that government's interest in drug free schools outweighs students fourth amendment rights). Click here for more on student-athlete drug testing and the law
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA), and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) team up to produce video: The Role of The Principal In Interscholastic Athletics. Click here to download.
MORE ON THE CORRELATION BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS AND GOOD GRADES! Click Here for Participants In Activity Programs Do Better In Classroom by Don Showalter, NFHS High School Today..
COACHES UNDER ATTACK!
Parent Accused of Attacking Youth Football Coach in Ohio. This is a confluence of unprofessionalism that turned ugly. The parent kept yelling at the coach to run a sweep. Finally, the coach did, and the play was unsuccessful. The coach then allegedly told the parent, "There's your sweep" and the parent allegedly responded by beating up the coach. Poor professionalism by a clearly frustrated coach and even worse thuggery by the idiot parent. Things aren't better in Utah where a parent allegedly hit an assistant coach with a helmet, knocking the coach out. See Parent Accused of Attacking Football Coach by Buddy Blankenfeld, ABC4.
Get a Healthy Start: Click here for the California Interscholastic Federation's Sports Medicine Handbook For A Model of What Your School or Youth Program Should Be Doing
University of
Georgia's Athlete's Heartbeat program screens athletes for heart problems. Boston Scientific
and a host of organizations, including the Black Coaches Association, push for
program expansion with their Close The Gap Initiative. See
BCA Focuses on Heart
Health by Greg Johnson, NCAA News. Also, see
Boston Scientific Launches Educational Initiative To Address Disparities In
Cardiovascular Care, Reuters News Service. Boston
Scientific's Close The Gap program is aimed at addressing disparities in
cardiovascular care for the underserved patient populations of women, black
Americans and Latino Americans. According to Reuters, "Close the Gap
will work to increase awareness of cardiovascular risk factors through community
programs involving faith-based organizations, collegiate and professional
athletic teams, and patient advocacy groups. A key focus of the campaign
will be to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest as a leading cause of death
among young athletes. Toward this end, Close the Gap has established a
close relationship with the Black Coaches and Administrators organization, a
national nonprofit whose members are mentors and leaders in their communities.
Statistics reveal that in the United States, a young competitive athlete dies
from sudden cardiac arrest every three or four days. The average age of
those who die is 17.5 years, ninety percent of them are male, and more than half
are black."
Click Here For NASO Steroid Awareness Page (includes PSA, Steroid Awareness Video, Drug Testing Info and More). See the steroid information page for more.
What Do Kids Want? The Right Things! Click Here For MHSAA's Student Advisory Council's Belief Statement About School Sports.
Renton, Tyee Forfeit After Football Fight by Sandy Ringer, Seattle Times. It's bad enough that these schools had a fight, but this is a troubled league. In 2007-08, four schools had five players or more receive ejections.
More Football Fights: Lakeside, Stone Mountain Game Turns Ugly Late by Todd Holcomb, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Seven player fight leads to early end in this Georgia football game.
New York Girls' JV soccer game marred by spectator allegedly yelling a racial slur at African-American girls JV soccer players. See Horseheads Girls Forfeit Over Alleged Racial Slur by Nancy Doolilng, Ithaca Journal. When these things happen, if you don't catch the offending party red-handed, you often have trouble proving it. That's what happened here. See No Evidence of Racial Slurs, Say Vestal Officials by Nancy Dooling, Ithaca Journal, and Racial Slur Reports To Be Released by Nancy Dooling, Ithaca Journal.
Edmonton, CA - June 5, 2008 - A Dozen Players From Youth Soccer Team Launch Post-Game Attack On Parent. See Edmonton Boys Soccer Team Suspended After Soccer Dad Swarmed, Camwest News Service on Canada.com, June 16, 2008; and See Teen Charged In Soccer Attack Says He Wasn't There, Reported by Sonya Sunger, CTVEdmonton.ca, July 23, 2008.
We Thought Sportsmanship Bottomed Out When A Youth Baseball Coach Mooned The Umpire in Pittsburgh last week (See Coach Charged With 'Mooning' Umpire, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 15, 2008) now we know better. A debate coach mooned his opponent at Fort Hays State University. We have truly stooped to a new low. See Kansas University Fires Mooning Debate Coach, by Roxana Hegeman, Associated Press on yahoo.com. Click here for NPR coverage (In an interesting addition to the story, NPR says Coach William Shanahan argued with and mooned the opposing coach because he respected her).
Latest Administrative Information
NCCSI Annual Report Added to Site: Click below for the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury's annual report: TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT - FALL 1982 - SPRING 2007 (THIS IS THE ANNUAL REPORT COVERING THE 2006-07 ACADEMIC YEAR). For football injury reports from 1931-2007 go to the Administration page, click on the medical bookmark and scroll down to Football Injury Reports.
Volunteer Coaches - Yes, They Are Your Responsibility. Volunteers can get you in trouble just as fast as your paid coaches. In C.T. v. Liberal Sch. Dist, 06-2093-JWL (D. Kan 2008), the Liberal School District avoided Title IX liability because they were unaware of their volunteer weight coach's misconduct, but they could still be subject to vicarious liability - which means the employer of the volunteer coach is financially responsible for the volunteer's negligent misconduct. Click here for an interesting take on the Title IX issues in C.T.
Otis, Dominguez High In News Again: Coach Russell Otis wins big, but is constantly embroiled in sexual, recruiting and financial scandals. He's only two for three this year as he's got a sex allegation and a financial allegation hanging over his head. What! no recruiting allegations this time? See CIF Southern Section Strips Dons of Home Playoff Games by Gene C. Johnson, Jr, Compton Bulletin (Dominguez allegedly was delinquent in handing over its playoff game receipts to the entity that runs high school sports in Southern California); and Compton Dominguez Basketball Coach Investigated for Criminal Misconduct by Lance Pugmire and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times. For a decade of decadence - 10 years of reports on Otis and Dominguez, click here. (scroll down after you click on the link).
If you miss, you'll get paddled. Chicago Coaches Use Corporal Punishment Behind Closed Doors To Make Athletes Tow The Line - But They Just Got Caught! See CPS Takes Action on Corporal Punishment, a Dave Savini Report, CBS 2 Chicago. A brief legal note: Corporal punishment is barred in Chicago's public schools, but it is not unconstitutional should one's state decide to allow schools to do it. The governing legal case on this matter is an old (well - relatively old) Supreme Court decision, Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977), in which the Court held that the eighth amendment doesn't bar corporal punishment as it only applies to criminals, and corporal punishment does not unconstitutionally deprive students of a due process liberty interest because our long history of taking kiddies to the woodshed to receive corporal punishment means that we have a grand historical tradition of corporal punishment. Click here for an on-line edited opinion of Ingraham v. Wright. In short, there are states in which the Chicago coaches might have been well within their rights to paddle the kids - having said that, I don't think there are too many places where the public would be very happy with coaches paddling kids for things like missing a layup or messing up a volleyball serve - this isn't so much a case of the times they are a changing as it is a case of the times, they have a changed!
- East Liverpool, Ohio - Want To Motivate High School Players? Pay 'Em! Not A Good Idea, But Every Now and Then Someone Tries It. See Columbiana County Coach Accused of Rewarding Players With Cash, WTOV Channel 9.
Will Gas Prices Affect High School Sports? See Athletic Budgets: At What Cost? by Earl Vaughan, Jr, Fayetteville Observer, April 10, 2008, page 5C.
Could Metal Bats Be Safer Than Wood Bats? See Baseball at Breaking Point Over Maple Bats Yahoo.com Sports, and Maple Bats are Risky Business by Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle. Shattering Maple Bats Are Dangerous, but One Guy Thinks He Has An Unbreakable Maple Bat? See Bat Inventor Hopes To Take 'Ping' Out of Baseball by Tom Canavan, AP Sports Writer on Yahoo.com.
STILL THINK YOUR KID SHOULD USE MUSCLE BUILDING SUPPLEMENTS? THINK AGAIN! Informed Choice and HFL Labs' Study Finds 25% of All Supplements Are Contaminated With Trace Amounts of Steroids. Click Here For Informed Choice Press Release and Click Here For HFL Lab's Study.
HCM - Can We Solve It?
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) Is In The News After Sports Illustrated Article:
Click Here For General Information on HCM.
Click Here For the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association.
Arizona and Maryland Programs Offer Free HCM Detection: Click Here For Details on Arizona's TOPS Program. and see USA Today's Article on the Maryland program: Young Athletes Urged To Get Screened For Heart Trouble by Jim Halley, USA Today.
See The Administration Page for Latest Title IX News
STEROIDS - Click here for the steroids page
Steroids/Supplements
Saving Money - Or Giving Up The Fight Against Steroids? Florida Drops Its Steroid Testing Program - It Costs A Lot of Money and Didn't Catch A Lot of People. See States' Programs Finding Few Offenders by A.J. Perez, USA Today. Could Texas be next? It's program only caught two people last year. Is catching a few steroid users worth the expense? Should schools spend their money on other things? Well, maybe they should!!! A number of high school players were just caught in a Louisiana bust of a steroid ring. The high school's coaches had nary a clue that their boys took steroids - and quite a bit of steroids I might add. See Steroids Bust Shocks Coaches by Brady Aymond, Louisiana's TheAdvertiser.Com.
For complete administrative information see the administration page.
Latest Sportsmanship Information
91 - 0 Game Tough For Both Teams, AP Wire Service on Rivals.com. Yes, this was a 91-0 game, but when you read the story you'll see that the coaches and players are saying all the right things and handling it as well as it can be handled. Of course, there is some dispute as to whether it was handled as well as possible on the field but this blowout does not seem to have engendered as much ill will as some of the other games where scores have been run up. For more on running up scores and the problems it causes, click here.
Click Here For What Kids Wish Their Parents Knew About Sportsmanship - From The MHSAA website (note - this video has been licensed to high school state associations throughout the country; contact your state's sports governing body and you can probably get a copy to use at your school).
Visit the sportsmanship page for more information.
Latest Officiating Information
If you're an official and you're moving to a new state, you need a quick way to reach your new state's Officials' Association. Links to All 50 States Officials' Association Are Available on the Officials Page at the Links Bookmark.
Topeka, KS - Female Ref Banned From Boys' Game! ABC News by Chris Cuomo, Raquel Hecker, and Olivia Sterns, Feb 18, 2008 (And We Thought It Was The 21st Century)! See Officials Page For More.
Refs Under Attack
Ventura, CA - 14 Year Old Attacks Soccer Ref After Yellow Card: think what he would have done if he got a red card! See Youth Soccer Player Accused of Beating Up Referee, KTLA Television.
National Conference of State Legislatures Shines The Light On Attacks Against Officials. See Cease-Fire On The Umpire! by Garry Boulard, State Legislatures Magazine (published by the National Conference of State Legislatures), June 2008 and Cease-Fire On The Umpire! Steven Ellinger Q and A On-line extra by Garry Boulard, State Legislatures Magazine (published by the National Conference of State Legislatures), June 2008.
Latest Collins Article In Print Now. Read Improper Removal of Games in the latest It's Official Section of the September, 2008 Referee Magazine. Contact the National Association of Sports Officials to order Referee Magazine.
For more Collins articles visit the Articles Page .
FEATURED QUOTES AND APPEARANCES
NASO Summit, July 27-29, 2008 in Cleveland (Legal Issues Affecting Sports Officials Presentation with Alan Goldberger and Lowell Gratigny).
Bad Acts: April to June, 2008 on Collins's Expert Page on www.momsteam.com
Harvard educated attorneys Michael McCann and Greg Skidmore's site focuses on legal issues in sports, but touches extensively on sportsmanship issues.